Frank and Mary's Tavern: Time stands still at this lunch spot

Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune

A very Chicago-style tavern that you could easily drive by, Frank & Mary's Tavern in the Avondale neighborhood at 2905 N. Elston. The Old Style sign is the only signage that alerts to you to the business.

A very Chicago-style tavern that you could easily drive by, Frank & Mary's Tavern in the Avondale neighborhood at 2905 N. Elston. The Old Style sign is the only signage that alerts to you to the business. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)

Charles J. JohnsonTribune reporter

"Are you hungry, did you eat yet?" asks Mary Stark, touching the hand of Steve Twardowski. "Frank, get him a nice bowl of the goulash, on the house."

Twardowski, 30, a teacher and photographer, takes a seat at the bar, sips an Old Style and fiddles with his camera. He is shooting neighborhood taverns, to catalog them before they're all gone, replaced with barrooms where the definition of a good drink is no longer a shot and a beer but something "artisanal," the sand for the glassware locally sourced, of course.

Frank and Mary's Tavern in Avondale is precisely the place Twardowski is after. A lunch spot and bar from the era when Chicago's shoulders were a bit broader, when the city was still America's hog butcher, a maker of things. When factory workers clogged bar stools in three shifts, devouring roast beef and mashed potatoes, fried fish, smoked pork butt, schnitzel with red cabbage and meatloaf. The sort of place documented by Upton Sinclair and beloved by Mike Royko. Where the owner and executive chef just went by "Mary" or "Frank" and sit at the bar next to you, feeding you hot goulash because, for Chrissakes, it's freezing outside.

Brother and sister Frank and Mary Stark were born in Germany and Hungary respectively, coming to the United States with their parents in 1956. They grew up on the North Side, near Belmont Avenue and Broadway. Frank, now 64, worked as a bartender at a long-gone saloon named the Black Pearl while Mary, now a "young 69," took a job downtown at Standard Oil before a certain family member prodded the two into business together in 1972.

"Oh, God. It was my mother! She thought because both of them (Frank and Mary's then-husband) were bartenders that we ought to open a bar," said Mary. "They opened it, and I stayed at Standard Oil. But, I hated downtown. I make good meatloaf at home ... how hard could it be to make a meatloaf a bigger size?"

So was born the lunch they have been serving weekdays ever since. Mary's husband would quickly leave the picture. Forty or so years later, Frank and Mary's doors are still open.

At the start, their clientele were mostly workers at Hammond Organ Co. and other factories that used to dot the Elston Avenue industrial corridor. They got lots of city workers and cops too. Still do.

But after many of the factories shuttered, what customers say used to be standing room only at lunchtime is now mostly a group of relaxed friends and a few strangers who wander in searching for classic comfort food. The vibe is strictly first names and no-nonsense, almost familial. One afternoon, a man approaches the bar after his dining partner secretly picked up the check for the table.

"Frank, do me a favor. I owe that guy like five or six hundred bucks. Do not take any more money from that guy, OK? This place is the only way he'll ever let me pay him back!"

The rotating menu, barely changed in four decades, is chalked up weekly on the board at the back of the bar. Wednesday is always the specialty meatloaf. Tuesday? "Mary's Choice." She makes what she wants that day. Which isn't always easy. She's had two hips replaced and is in visible pain moving from table to bar to visit with customers. She will be going in for a knee operation soon, which she hopes will make things better.

Toward the end of Twardowski's shoot, Frank breaks out an envelope sitting behind the bar. It is full of pictures of how the place looked before they took it over in '72. Even in this place, an unwitting time capsule of another era, these are reminders that things here have evolved.

In one shot, spittoons dot the floor. In another, the bar is named Jeanette's. In a shot from the '50s, it's Earl's. The beautiful wooden bar with ornate carvings from the '30s has been replaced with a '70s-styled veneer counter. The massive mirror is gone too. Frank's championship season softballs sit yellowing on a bar shelf. Posters of former Mayor Jane Byrne and the late Bears great Walter Payton hang near each other.

Frank and Mary pass a single pair of eyeglasses back and forth to examine the photos. Wow, time sure changes things, they say.

Even Frank and Mary have done a little adjust to modern tastes. Their four taps boast local craft offerings from Revolution Brewing, Three Floyds and two German imports. There's Gentleman Jack and good rum behind the bar. The cocktail shaker appears little used, but it's there if needed.

One day, this sort of place may only live on in photographs. But for now, Frank is still behind the bar and Mary's lunch is still served every weekday, 11 to 2.